wn weight."

"We'll take a couple of shovels, anyhow," I cried. "I'll get 'em. Pull
your saddle off the pinto, Joe, he's used up, poor fellow, and slap it
on to the little gray. Saddle my pony, too, will you? I'll clap some
provisions into a bag and bring 'em along: there's no knowing how long
we'll be gone!"

"All right," replied Joe. And without more words, he turned to unsaddle
the still panting pony, while I ran to the house.

In five minutes, or less, we were under way.

"Not too fast!" cried Joe. "We mustn't blow the ponies at the start.
It's a good eight miles up to Peter's house."

As we ascended the hill and came up on top of the Second Mesa, I was
able to see for the first time the great scar on the mountain where the
slide had come down.

"Phew!" I whistled. "It was a big one, and no mistake. Did you see it
start, Joe?"

"Yes, I saw it start. I happened to be looking up there, thinking it
looked pretty dangerous, when a great mass of snow which was overhanging
that little cliff up there near the saddle, fell and started the whole
thing. It seemed to begin slowly. I could see three or four big patches
of snow fall from the precipice above Peter's cabin as though pushed
over, and then the whole great mass, fifteen feet thick, I should
think, three hundred yards wide and four or five times as long, came
down with a rush, pouring over the cliff with a roar like thunder. I
wonder you didn't hear it."

"I did," I replied, remembering the noise I had taken for a wind-storm,
"but being under the bluff, and the waterfall making so much noise, I
couldn't hear distinctly, and so thought nothing of it. Why!" I cried,
as I looked again. "There used to be a belt of trees running diagonally
across the slope. They're all gone!"

"Yes, every one of them. There were some biggish ones, too, you
remember; but the slide snapped them off like so many carrots. It cut a
clean swath right through them, as you see."

"Where were you, Joe, when you saw it come down?" I asked.

"More than half way to Sulphide. I came back in fifteen minutes--four
miles."

"Poor little Pinto! No wonder he was used up!"

We had been riding at a smart lope, side by side, while this
conversation was going on, and in due time we reached the foot-hills.
Here our pace was necessarily much reduced, but we continued on up
Peter's creek as rapidly as possible until the gulch became so narrow
and rocky, and so encumbered with great patches of snow